


Never was the Grass Ever Greener

by Kazzy



Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, Pre-Series, married in vegas
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-12
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-24 11:47:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1604012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kazzy/pseuds/Kazzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>2004. Vegas. Chuck and Sarah cross paths much earlier than they did in canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never was the Grass Ever Greener

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Not mine. The title is from the song 'One Day' by Opshop.

Sarah bites back a soft groan as she wakes up. Her head feels like it is seconds away from exploding and that it’s a good thing that she won’t have one anymore. Her mouth tastes like the time she was left to wander about the Kalahari Desert for three days with a rapidly depleting water supply and no food. Her body aches in other undefinable ways and her pillow is hard and too warm.

Also it appears to be breathing.

Her eyes flicker open and then snap shut at the sudden assault of light. Her feet kick out a little, making contact with what she assumes is someone else’s leg. Her pillow mutters something but seems to be still asleep. Carefully she opens her eyes and tries not to cringe at the brightness. She finds head tucked into the curve of someone’s neck.

That someone is mostly tucked under the covers but she can see enough to know he’s thin, but undefined – probably due to metabolism, rather than fitness and he’s pale from lack of sun, but it’s not unattractive. Taking care not to disturb him, she props herself up and studies his face. A mop of dark curls, mussed from sleep. Through whatever is stabbing at the back of her eye balls she vaguely remembers meeting him at the bar after being goaded to chatting up someone by Carina.

Times like this – with Amy off on her own mission – Sarah really regrets that she and Zondra are no longer on speaking terms. Generally it’s easier to deal with Carina’s own particular brand of fun with an ally at your back. Certainly you’re unlikely to find yourself in a strange hotel rooms with strange men and a hangover – and Sarah does a quick scan of the room, relieved to find that there is only two of them in it.

Her new _friend_ – and she assumes that at some point he told her his name, but she has not the foggiest clue what it is – stirs, face crinkling into a grimace but doesn’t wake. Not wanting to disturb him, she slides out from under the covers and hopes for the best. She keeps her attention on the bed, praying for the best as she collects her clothes and starts to pull them on, thankful that she has enough practise at changing in the dark so she doesn’t need to look at what she’s doing.

They met at the bar. And by then she’d been pretty drunk. She remembers finding him funny and then insisting on him catching up to her blood-alcohol level. She remembers dancing but not much else. She definitely does remember coming up to his room with him (at least she thinks it’s his room). Vaguely – and if the pull of her muscles is any indication – she thinks she enjoyed herself. A lot. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t regret it now.

A drunken one night stand that she can barely remember in Vegas. She’s not sure how that this can be anymore clichéd. 

All she needs to do she find her purse and then she make a run for it and hopes that Carina isn’t back at their crappy little motel room already. If the other woman never finds out about this, it’ll still be too soon. Her Vegas cliché is still sound asleep and if she can avoid him as well then all the better.

But luck is not with her. With attention split between so many things and her head pounding with a hangover, she fails to notice the low couch before she topples over the top of it and lands painfully half on-half off the coffee table. It responds by tipping itself and Sarah to the floor with an impressive crash.

“What?” The figure on the bed jolts upright limbs flailing, eyes wide. His confused gaze lands on Sarah and he frowns at her, hair tumbling into his eyes.

Painfully, with fresh set of bruises to match the finger sized ones on her hips, Sarah climbs to her feet. She reminds herself that she’s a spy and that she can extract herself from the situation. “Um,” she says, “hi.” She swipes a lock of hair out of her eyes. She really wishes he’d stayed asleep and then they wouldn’t be dealing with so much awkward.

He’s still frowning, scowling almost. But if his head feels anything like hers that’s not surprising. “Sarah, right?” His voice is soft and sends a tingle down her spine. He scrapes some of his hair back and blinks a couple of times.

“Yeah. I’m sorry but I don’t remember…”

“Chuck. And I’m the one who should be sorry.”

She very nearly comments on the likelihood of someone calling their child ‘Chuck’ in this day and age but holds it back in favour of his other comment. “What for?”

“I was pretty drunk last night but I should know better than to…” his cheeks colour and he flicks his wrist but doesn’t complete the thought.

“We were both really drunk.” She remembers both of them throwing back a number of shots very rapidly. “I don’t think we can hold you responsible.” To avoid looking at him, she sets the coffee table to rights. “I’m, uh, I’m going to go now.” Her small, pokey hotel room – quiet and dark – and lots of coffee sounds really good right now. She’s flying out at two and she’d like to not feel dead when that happens. Aeroplanes and hangovers do not mix.

“Yeah. Sure.” He looks away from her, down, blush spreading down his chest. She decides, even through her aching, nauseous state that it’s kind of adorable. He tenses suddenly for no apparent reason but she figures it’s something to do with the sheer amount of awkward in the room – the faster she leaves the faster they can both pretend this never happened. 

A scan of the room reveals her purse sitting under a side table by the door. On the table, out of place, is a piece of paper, she notices it but doesn’t bother to see what it says, ducking down to grab her last possession.

“Uh… Sarah?” Her name is choked out and she spins, alarmed. He meets her eyes and for the first time she sees something more than embarrassment in him. Panic. “I don’t remember much about last night. But I do remember that I wasn’t wearing this when I went out. He hold up a shaking hand and points to one finger. He’s a fair distance across the room, with her by the door now, but a shaft on sun slinks through the blinds and helpfully illuminates a brand new wedding ring.

Instinctively she glances down to her own hands. Sure enough metal and something sparkly sparkles up at her. Blindly she grasps at the piece of paper sitting on the side table behind her, her stomach sinking as she realises what it probably is. 

Certificate of Marriage.

Of one Charles Irving Bartowski to one Sarah Walker.

Signed, dated and clearly authentic.

Well, she’s definitely become a complete cliché.

-x-x-x-

Morgan had won a trip for two to Vegas via some radio competition he’d entered while he was supposed to be working. Deciding that it was long past time for Chuck to stop moping about the Bryce-Jill-Stanford saga he’d gleefully decided that it was a perfect opportunity for the two of them to kick back and have some fun. And Ellie, surprisingly enough, had agreed.

Now Chuck doubts if Ellie and Morgan, his best interests at heart or not, had meant for him to find himself in quite this same predicament. Which is to say, sitting across from the most beautiful woman he’d ever met in the hotel restaurant, eating the complimentary breakfast and not talking about the elephant standing beside the table, trumpeting. Well, Chuck’s digging into a massive plate of bacon, eggs and hash browns, Sarah’s clutching at a cup of coffee for dear life and staring blankly at a point about six inches to the left of his shoulder.

Married. Ellie is going to kill him. She’s had dibs on planning his wedding since he was fourteen. (His Dad, having actually made it to breakfast that morning, had peered over a soggy bowl of cereal at him and told him he’d regret that promise one day. Chuck, mostly happy that Ellie was no longer nagging him about homework, had shrugged it off.)

Of course the chances of him still being married for much longer are not high. Which fine because you call him a traditionalist but he does believe in doing some things properly – and the whole relationship, proposal, marriage order is one of them. Besides Sarah, blond, drop dead gorgeous and a travelling consultant of some kind is so far out of his league he shouldn’t even be able to see her perch from where he’s standing.

“So. Know any good lawyers?” he means his words to be light, almost teasing but even to his own ears he sounds confused and upset. He’s not sure why. He can’t help feeling like this is his fault and that Sarah has every right to hate him for being jerk enough to get drunk and marry a stranger in Vegas.

She grimaces now at his question. “Not really. You?”

“Not here.” He has a couple of unburned bridges from Stanford and he has a friend who has a brother who practises civil law, and can probably be persuaded to take the case. But that’s in Los Angeles and the sooner they get this started the sooner they can both start pretending it didn’t happen. And he doesn’t want to drag her across a state line to dissolve their marriage (isn’t that what people do to get married?) “I’ll see if I can find someone here first.”

"I'm flying out this afternoon." Sarah's gaze darts to his face and settles on his chin, which he supposes is an improvement.

“So am I. Or not flying so much as driving back to… Burbank.” He finishes lamely.

They fall silent and Chuck makes a mental note to grab a phonebook from reception once they’re done with this incredibly awkward breakfast. Which will hopefully be sooner rather than later because he doesn’t know how more of this he can take. Of the awkward and thinking about how he doesn’t remember the sex. He also hopes they used condoms because if not it could end very badly. Diseases and stuff. Babies. He groans and considers hitting his head on the table hard.

Sarah’s head snaps up and she stares at him with what must be the prettiest eyes he’s ever seen and open her mouth to say something but before she can they’re interrupted by a drawling voice. “So, then, you must be the Mister.”

The speaker is the tall redhead – who is almost scarily beautiful – who Chuck remembers entering the bar with Sarah the previous evening. They’d made quite a splash, looking the way they did, managing to attract a lot of attention even after Sarah had wandered over and started buying him shots. Chuck groans again and rubs his head.

“Carina. What are you doing here?” Sarah’s voice is flat and unwelcoming, face expressionless. But it doesn’t seem to ward Carina off, who wraps an around Sarah’s shoulders and beams over at Chuck. He’s pretty sure men have died on the blades of that smile so he glances back down at… his wife. And has to fight the urge to bury his head in his arms.

“I’m just here to give my congratulations to the happy couple.” She beams at Chuck in a way that is reminiscent of a tiger watching its next meal.

"Thanks," says Sarah though she seems to mean 'go away'. “How did you even know?”

Carina pulls out a phone, smile widening, eyes alight with the unholy powers of a demon. Chuck has a sudden sinking feeling he knows what’s coming next. Sure enough she hits a button and for a few seconds all any of them hear is a voice mail of loud music and a soft murmur which causes Chuck’s face to heat when he identifies it as his own.

“Carina!” Sarah shouts over the loud music. “I got married. How’s that for fun? Stop that.” The throaty chuckle that answers her last statement is very clearly his own. Chuck gives up all pretence of dignity and buries his head in his arms and prays for a nuclear strike. “That. Stop that.” Her last word is a gasp that is abruptly cut off by a beep and a tinny voice telling them that the message has been deleted.

He chances a peak up at Sarah to find her handing Carina’s phone back to her, face alight with a scowl. Though to be honest Carina doesn’t look too pleased with this turn of events either. “Walker. I was going to keep that for prosperity.”

Sensing an argument brewing, Chuck rapidly pushes his chair back from the table. “I’m, uh, I’m going to go and find a lawyer.” He stands and pushes his chair back from the table.

As he’s walking across the restaurant, Carina’s voice drifts back to him. “Aw, is the honeymoon over already?” he closes his eyes and barely avoids stumbling.

-x-x-x-

Sarah draws in several deep breaths before knocking on her h… on Chuck’s hotel door. She can’t remember the last time she found herself in a situation quite as tangled as this one. If it were a mission she’d be asking for extraction and clean-up because she’s clearly too emotionally compromised to follow this one through. But this is not a mission (and if only someone _would_ start shooting at her) and this is not something the CIA is going to deal with for her. This is all on Sarah and her brand new, slightly awkward, but not unattractive husband.

Chuck pulls it open about thirty seconds later, a little breathless, phone tucked under his ear. He gives her a tight smile and stands back to usher her into the room. “Of course,” he tells whoever he’s talking to. “No, that’s no good. It had to be today… okay, thank you.” He ends the call and gives her a long, frustrated look. He flops down to sit on the unmade bed, Sarah remains standing and is thankfully too well-trained to squirm at all.

“That was the fifth practice. I can’t find anyone who can see us today.” He huff out a breath of annoyance, swipes a cup of coffee off a side table and takes a sip.

“Chuck, I’m sorry.” She is not squirming, she is calm and collected, but even then she can’t help shifting her weight forward on to the balls of her feet. She wishes she knew him better so she could predict how he was going to react to what she was about to tell him. She sucks in a deep breath and lets it out. “While I was downstairs—” bickering with Carina— “my boss called and I need to leave earlier than I planned.”

He swallows and fidgets a little. “When?”

“I need to be at the airport in an hour.” She’s being assigned a new partner for this one – not unexpected given the current state of the C.A.T. Squad – and she has to be there to meet him before the leave. She suspects it’s part of their cover but until she gets to Langley she won’t know for sure.

“An hour? But what about…?” He gestures with the hand still wrapped around his cup and the coffee sloshes over the brim a little. Sarah can’t help finding it just a little adorable – or would, if things weren’t quite so difficult. “This is something we need to deal with soon, Sarah.”

“I know.” She draws in a deep breath, lets it out and wishes that her head wasn’t pounding quite so loudly. “But I don’t get to argue with where and when. Look, I’ll be back in the country in a few weeks and I should be able to get a day or two to myself then and we can deal with it then.” She’ll have to make a trip out to California and then back to D.C. over a very short space of time but there’s not much she can do about that.

Remaining married is not an option. If nothing else this little jolt of reality proves that. If she were a normal person with a normal job she’d be able to call into work and ask for a day or two while she dealt with this. If she were a normal person she’d be asking for an annulment and to see him again once they were both free and single. But she is not a normal person and she can’t expect him to understand why her life is not her own. There are too many lives that depend on Sarah doing her job.

And at the end of the day it’s not fair to him that she got him into this mess and she’s going to be the one that walks out on him.

-x-x-x-

He offers to come to the airport with her which is terribly sweet but she doesn’t want him to have any idea where she’s going. The less he knows about her life the better so that when they part – finally and for good – nothing in her life can come back to hurt him. So she kisses him on the cheek and leaves him standing in the centre of his hotel room, promising that she will call as soon as she lands and once she knows she’s coming back (probably not until she’s only a couple of days from flying back).

By the time she reaches D.C. she’s wondering at her own sentimentality and puts it down to the alcohol. And she pushes Chuck Bartowski, and how adorably rumpled he looked just after waking up, to the back of her mind. She has a new partner to meet, a mission to go on, and those things need her full attention. All Chuck’s allowed is a quick mental reminder to wait a few hours and send a text message to tell him she’s in Bangkok (even if that’s not where she is) and will be for a while.

She tucks her ring into a hidden compartment in her suitcase and wonders what she’s going to do with it when all of this is over.

-x-x-x-

Chuck knows he’s being quiet on their trip back to Burbank but any time he tries to start a conversation with Morgan, his throat closes over and he forgets what he’s about to say. The only words that hover on his tongue, unforgotten, are about Sarah and the wedding.

"What happened to you last night, anyway?” Morgan asks about an hour into the journey. 

Chuck throws him a tight smile but turns his attention back to the road because being pulled over by the cops would be the last straw today. “Not much.” He’s not sure why he’s keeping this from his best friend but maybe it has something to do with the nugget of guilt that’s still keeping from breathing too deeply. Or maybe it’s the lingering sense of confusion as to how the whole evening played out. Or maybe it’s just the terror when both Morgan and Ellie find out he’s going to be very dead. “But I can tell you I am never getting that drunk again.”

Morgan’s been looking a little green around the gills himself nods. “I hear you, buddy. I hear you. Was that blond who picked you up as hot as she looked? She didn’t try to steal your wallet or anything did she?”

Chuck’s wallet is in his back pocket, weighed down by a simple gold ring. “No. She didn’t try to steal anything.”

-x-x-x-

**Author's Note:**

> In the Dark Age that was 2004 'free wifi' was nothing more than a dream of the future. Which may seem like an odd comment until you realise that Chuck had to find a phone book to find a lawyer and it was either that or an internet cafe.


End file.
